Too Long on the Couch...

So much TV watching today, which is rare for me. After my ride this morning (yay leg-speed month, or neuro-muscular training if you want to sound all technical about it), I had to watch my recording of Nadal-Federer at the French Open final. Five hours! But it's still sad to see the second best clay-courter in the world can't beat the first best clay-courter. One of these years, Roger will come up with something... I hope. You can't really call it a rivalry if the one guy always wins. Well, maybe you can: Celtics-Lakers in the 1960's.

Then there was all the cycling. An hour of the US Pro Championships from last week, an hour of the prologue for the Dauphine, and two more hours of the Philadelphia International. That's a lot of sports TV watching.

I only feel okay about it because I lost 5 pounds this week. I know, you're asking, where did you find 5 more pounds to lose? Well, I lost 5 pounds from the start of the year during my 3 month base fitness building. Then, during climbing month and heavy load month (that's muscular endurance, form, and technique training to use my big boy words), I gained 5 pounds. I would like to say all of it was muscle, and some of it was, but some big portion of the weight was water weight. I was just drinking too much fluid during the course of the day. So, starting this week, to coincide with the start of leg-speed month, I've cut down my fluid intake. The metabolism ramp-up from increasing my pedal cadence by 15 rpm, combined with only drinking half as much during the day (still a healthy amount), and voila, 5 pounds gone. The beer softness (my friends have made me swear not to call it a beer gut or beer belly, because, that's just not fair) is still with me, though. Stupid beer softness.

Let's Be Polite Cyclists

Cafe Etiquette 101 | Cycling Tips:

"It’s a common scene for most of us. After a ride we’ll head to our favorite cafe, lean a dozen bikes up against their clean windows, clip-clop in, move 2-3 tables together, then take our sweaty helmets and gloves off and lay them all over the place. Then we’ll settle in, loudly discuss anything and everything cycling and woo at the pretty girls passing by."

I've never been with a group of cyclists at a cafe where we displayed the kinds of behavior in Cycling Tips' post (we tend to be the nice-guy cycling group), but it never hurts to be reminded to be as aware of our surroundings off the bike sipping a latte, as we are when we're mixing it up with cars on the street.